Despite major investments to improve the reliability and comfort of its buses, the Société de transport de Montréal has seen bus ridership plummet in the last few years, according to figures obtained by the Montreal Gazette in an access-to-information request. The findings come as most major cities in North America are also struggling with declining or stagnating numbers. The request was for bus ridership numbers over the last 10 years, but the STM only provided data spanning 2012 to 2017, saying statistics for previous years were not available. The findings show a steep overall decline of bus ridership by 13.32 per cent in that period, with the biggest drop in 2015, when ridership plummeted 6.38 per cent. From 2012 to 2017, the STM’s bus ridership dropped by more than 34 million trips per year.

This fall, the CEGEP de l’Outaouais will become the first college in Quebec and one of only two in Canada to offer a degree in how to grow and harvest cannabis. Students in Gatineau will also learn how to turn it into oil or brownies, and navigate the complex and ever-changing legal framework around the plant. But they won’t be able to touch the stuff in class. That will still be illegal. It’s just one of the many paradoxes that consumers, parents, schools and businesses in Quebec will face starting Oct. 17 as Canada becomes the first major economy in the world to fully legalize marijuana. (It has been legal in Uruguay since 2013). Three months before M-Day, we look at some of the potholes on the road ahead.

On Oct. 17, Canada will become the first major economy in the world to fully legalize marijuana.Justin Tang /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

He used to stare out his office window at the end of every day, watching the congestion on the highway and dreading the commute home to Dorval. Now, Brad Olsthoorn’s commute time has been cut in half, and he’s home in time to have dinner with his wife and two children. “I used to be home just in time for them to go to bed and they were exhausted,” said Olsthoorn, the general manager of Silent Partner Software, which provides software for non-profit companies such as Youth Unlimited in Dorval. “I get quality time with them now.” Hemmed in between the perennial construction sites of the Turcot Interchange and the Mercier Bridge, on Clément Ave. in LaSalle, Silent Partner recently picked up and moved its office to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue on the western tip of the island to save employees from commuting hell and in hopes of making the company more attractive to prospective employees.

The launch date for Montreal’s composting centres, already postponed from 2019 to 2020, is now shifting into 2021 with a higher estimated price tag and no less controversy over the location of at least one of the facilities. Civil servants are at this moment evaluating two bids that were received in May to award a “turnkey” contract to design, build, operate and maintain the centre that’s planned for St-Laurent borough, a city spokesperson said this week. The bid deadline was five months later than planned. Former mayor Denis Coderre and his administration launched the call for tenders for the St-Laurent facility in July last year, but it seemed to disappear in a void following Coderre’s ouster in the November election.

Two companies are vying for city contracts to design, build, operate and maintain three of Montreal’s organic waste treatment facilities. After leaving the calls for tenders for three separate contracts open for nearly a year, the city received a single bid for two of the facilities and two bids for the third, the city confirmed on Thursday. The bids are from SUEZ Canada Waste Services Inc. and La compagnie de recyclage de papiers MD Inc., city spokesperson Gabrielle Fontaine-Giroux said in an email on Thursday. The three facilities are composting centres in the boroughs of St-Laurent and Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles and a biomethanation plant in the suburb of Montreal-East. Biomethanation is a process that turns organic waste into biogas.

The U.S. border crossing post at the Canadian border between Vermont and Quebec.Wilson Ring /
AP

As more than 150,000 Quebecers prepare to enjoy two weeks off when province’s construction holiday begins on Sunday, no small number of them will make their annual pilgrimage to country homes, hotels and resorts in the United States. And in anticipation of that southbound migration, CAA-Quebec has issued a collection of tips to help reduce the stress in crossing the border into the U.S. — and back into Canada.

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